Two top level executives at Build a Rocket Boy, the studio working on MindsEye, have parted ways from the company just a week ahead of the game's launch. The two that left Build a Rocket Boy are now former chief legal officer Riley Graebner and former chief financial officer Paul Bland.
Graebner was with Build a Rocket Boy for about three and a half years. Bland was with the studio for a bit over two years.
Two executives leaving so close to the release of a company's first game is certainly worth raising a few eyebrows over. Mind you that MindsEye is expected to be released on June 10th, which is now less than a week away.
Compounding the flat out bizarre timing are additional remarks shared by Build a Rocket Boy's CEO, Mark Gerhard, about one week ago. Gerhard said that there was some sort of a hate campaign going against MindsEye. Gerhard made baseless claims that people were being paid to react negatively towards MindsEye, stating:
In an exchange on the MindsEye Discord server, Mark Gerhard was asked if he believes "all the people who reacted negatively were financed by someone", to which he replied: "100 percent."
When another user in the chat highlighted Gerhard's claims were rather unexpected, the studio exec replied: "Not wild when it's true....."
In another reply, the studio exec added it "doesn't take much to guess who" with an accompanying laughing emoji, though he didn't elaborate on this point further at the time. However, when confronted about the matter further, Gerhard said there has been a "concerted effort" involved regarding criticism around the game and the studio.
Wrote Gerhard: "I just said that there is a concerted effort by some people that don't want to see Leslie or Build A Rocket Boy to be successful that are making a concerted effort to trash the game and the studio. It's pretty easy to see the bots and the repeated replies to any content that we put out."
When another user in the chat highlighted Gerhard's claims were rather unexpected, the studio exec replied: "Not wild when it's true....."
In another reply, the studio exec added it "doesn't take much to guess who" with an accompanying laughing emoji, though he didn't elaborate on this point further at the time. However, when confronted about the matter further, Gerhard said there has been a "concerted effort" involved regarding criticism around the game and the studio.
Wrote Gerhard: "I just said that there is a concerted effort by some people that don't want to see Leslie or Build A Rocket Boy to be successful that are making a concerted effort to trash the game and the studio. It's pretty easy to see the bots and the repeated replies to any content that we put out."
MindsEye is expected to be out on June 10th for consoles and PC. According to Build a Rocket Boy founder Leslie Benzies, MindsEye is expected to take players about 20 hours to complete. I suppose we'll find out if that's true or not when the game releases next week.
